Munsell Value Scale
This is a must. Unless you have a Munsell value scale as part of a Munsell book, you absolutely should get hold of the Paul Centore Munsell Value scale from Ebay. This will allow you to absolutely nail the values.
At a minimum, you must have this to have a chance of getting the best from the course – all the values will be controlled with it. It’s only $10 so won’t break the bank, and will be very useful to you even after the workshop is over.
ChromaMagic App
I strongly reccomend you get this app. It’s an incredubly useful learning tool in its own right, and I’ll be using it extensively in the workshop to show you how to select and then mix the basic colours for each flower. It’s only $20 from the Googl Play or Apple store.
Brushes
There will be a focus on descriptive brush marks and paint hanlding in this workshop, and to help with that I’ve put together a recommended set of brushes at Rosemary’s Brushes.
>> Click here for the brush set
You don’t have to have these brushes to do the course. I will be referring to and using them as we work through the paitings. There are a variety of brushes incuded that make different kinds of strokes. They’re all synthetics, and cheaper versions will likely be good too, if you can find ones of similar shape.
You can also just use the brushes you have, there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as you have a few synthetic flats, you’ll be able to replicate most of what I’ll be doing.
I’d suggest the following, in addition to the above. But bear in mind this is just a guide. If you have brushes you particularly like, and know well, by all means use them:
- 2 x hog flat or filbert, large-ish – size 6 to 8 or 5/8 inch ferrule
- 4 x smaller hog filberts, size 2 or 1/4 inch ferrule
Beyond this, which brushes you use is a personal choice and is not too critical. But here are a few guidelines and recommendations for other brushes you can use, or might like to have handy.
General Advice on Synthetics
To a large extent, any soft, synthetic flats will do, but here are some brands to consider:
Winsor and Newton Sceptre Gold – whilst they unfortunately have short handles, (although I have heard you can get them with long handles now…) the ‘long stroke’, series 606, are very good brushes, both for painting and softening.
NOTE: These are not completely synthetic, I think they are a sable and synthetic mix, so if you don’t want to use natural hair in your brushes, you won’t want these. Any soft, flat synthetic will do in their stead.
For the larger soft synthetic flat for dry brush blending and softening, brand isn’t important, it just needs to be very soft. The best ones I’ve found are watercolour wash brushes.
Advice on Bristle
Bristle hogs are fantastic when you want to add some dynamism and texture. I’ll be using them in this workshop for blocking in backgrounds and the main body of the flowers at times. Brand isn’t critical but do get quality if you can. I like Cornelissens series 44 best, but they may take a while to ship to the US. In those brushes, if you can manage it, I’d get a couple size 1, a couple of size 3 and a couple size 5 or 6 at the minimum. I tend to change brushes when I change colour in order to keep the colours clean, so the more brushes the better!
Winsor and Newton are also pretty good.
Synthetic rounds
The Sceptre Gold (https://www.dickblick.com/items/05003-1000/) will be good here, I think probably size 1 and 2 will be useful. They’re also useful to use dry for very fine detailed edge softening.
Tube Paints
Whilst I will try to give you options for reaching the colours we’ll be mixing, it will be easier for you if you have the same tube paints as me. This list will cover most eventualities in the course and also give you a good foundation that covers a wide range of colours without having too many tubes.
If you want to use your own preferred tube paints, that’s fine of course. But please understand that you may find it more difficult to get some of the mixes, and some high chroma ones may not be possible at all, depending on what you have available.
All colours are Michael Harding unless otherwise noted
- White – I’d recommend a lead white, buit titanium will work too if you don’t want to use lead-based paint. My favourite is Lead White (#1 or #2) from Rublev. I hear RGH is good too, but I haven’t used it.
- Cadmium yellow (Cadmium Yellow pale if Winsor and Newton)
- Bright Yellow Lake (any arylide yellow like Hansa Yellow will also do well here) or Cadmium Lemon Yellow
- Quinacridone rose
- Green gold (Williamsburg is cheaper than Michael Harding and much the same)
- Transparent red oxide
- Ultramarine Blue
- Raw umber
- Ivory Black
- Phthalo green. Winsor and Newton Winsor Green is perfect.
- (optional) Dioxazine purple
Surface
For this course we’ll be working on Ampersand Gessobord Panels. You can use the cradled or the uncradled. We’ll be producing five or six paintings, so six 8 x 10 inch panels should cover it. You are of course welcome to work with different sizes as long as your fine with handling the different aspect ration yourself. All the reference pohotos will be designed to be painted at 8 x 10 inches.
Ampersand Panels:
https://www.dickblick.com/products/ampersand-gessobord
Medium
Cold Pressed or Refined Linseed Oil and a solvent like Gamsol or turps.
You can drop the solvent entirely and just use oil, or use Rublev Oleogel. Olegel is much stiffer, but can be applied in thin a very layer and painted into in much the same way.
Set Up
This is really personal and depends on what kind of easel you have. I like to work standing up at an upright easel but since we’ll be painting from a photo, it’s up to you.
You’ll need a tablet or computer with a decent screen, and to have that next to your easel.
It works best if you can have the reference photo open on one device, say a tablet, and have the live stream of the session on something else, a desktop or laptop.
If you’re not working in daylight (preferably you will) you will need a good light on your easel, CRI 96 or better and a temperature of around 5600k. If you want a recommendation, these are great. One either side of your easel will give a good, even light:
I use them with softboxes over the lights.
Softboxes for the above lights
Other stuff
- Palette knives – I use RGM progrip for mixing, and the Hobein MX 1 is nice for painting with
- Make up sponge for oiling out
- A decent palette of course. Glass is best, especially with a sheet of mid-value neutral grey paper underneath. I use a shelf from an old fridge!
- Kitchen roll or paper towels
- Paint shapers – I use the Princeton Catalyst ones and particularly like the 01 and 02